It's all gone grey...

The distric cooling company call centre.
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And then there is pest control…

A rather smelly and noisy rat finds its way into your apartment. You call the master developer’s call centre and tell them about your uninvited guest, and request that they eject him and stop him coming back.

You have, after all, paid your community and service charges haven’t you?

You are then more than a little surprised when the master developer’s staff tells you that you have to deal with your owner’s association for pest control. You ask what you paid your initial service charges to the master developer for, and they tell you that your payments only cover service to the common areas of your building, not each individual apartment. Strange, as they sent the air conditioning technicians to your apartment earlier, didn’t they, or were you dreaming?

As you live on the top floor of the building you ask the call centre operator whether he thinks that your personal rodent, (yes, it’s yours now, remember…) flew in to your apartment through an open window in order to avoid the common areas of the building. Or perhaps he abseiled down from a rodent assault helicopter with the specific intention of not trespassing on the common areas while sneaking past security? Or maybe, just maybe, he actually walked through a common area to get to your apartment and take up comfortable residency.

The call centre operator checks with a supervisor and after couple of hours they finally issue a work order number and tell you that someone will call. No-one ever does though and meanwhile your rodent may be inviting all his friends to enjoy your home and hospitality.

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What does all this mean to us as facilities managers?

Simple, make sure you cover all the grey areas when procuring services. Can you find one provider who will provide a total air conditioning support service throughout the building rather than on certain sections of the system? Can you arrange pest control service that doesn’t differentiate between a privileged rodent in a residential unit and a less fortunate rodent in a common area?

When we are dealing with owners associations we have to be aware that the people we are negotiating with may not actually know what their requirements are. They will probably think they know but we have a duty to inform and educate so that the general manager of the association, and his team, are fully aware of any shortcomings in their strategy.

So let’s make sure we cover all our options. Our clients will probably not even notice or comment as we go about our business if our service level is good, but they will certainly let us know if service is not up to their expectations.

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